While we also fell way short of our goal of $4,000, we enjoyed being part of the Challenge. It kept us going from week to week, and we learned what we need to do to improve our sales. We would enjoy being part of the Challenge again next year, Gary, if you choose to continue it. Best wishes to all in your sales adventures! Thank you, Gary, for all we learned from you! Kathy and Larry

Well the 2008 Garage Sale Challenge has ended and we fell far short of our goal of $5000.00 in net profit for the summer. We were way too optimistic about how much inventory we would find and how much we would be able to list. We’ll plead naivete since mid August marked the end of our first year selling on eBay. We learned a lot over the course of the challenge and had a lot of fun. Having a goal kept us moving some mornings when we might not have otherwise.

Some things we learned….It’s easier to buy things than to get them listed. In short enthusiasm can’t make up for a basic lack of time! We still have unlisted inventory from the summer even though a family emergency essentially kept us from buying from mid August through September. Since we do this part time weekends are often the only time we have for both buying and listing.

Mileage is a huge expense at least in the small town rural environment where we live. Our mileage expense for the challenge was 23% of our total sales – we were stunned to learn this. We were pretty sloppy about recording and deducting mileage last year and it’s clear now this is a mistake. Needless to say we’re paying much more attention to it now.

Our instincts for what sells well are pretty good and getting better all the time.

We enjoy doing this and we enjoy doing this together (this cannot be understated since we’re not really making any money at it yet!).

It was fun “meeting” the other challenge participants and following along as you worked towards your goals. Best of luck to everyone going forward. Gary, thanks for organizing the challenge and thanks again for sharing so much of what you know at Auction Rebel. We hope you’ll do it again next year!

My 2008 Garage Sale Challenge came to an end with the auctions that ended the evening of Sunday, October 5th.

Here’s how the final results look.

Ended

eBay Sold

Amazon Sold

Cost

List Fees

FV Fees

PayPal Fees

Incid. Fees

Miles

Net Profit

Total

5/11

$193.46

$59.99

$35.35

$6.30

$18.04

$10.27

$0.00

$24.75

$150.37

$158.74

5/18

$923.70

$247.40

$59.55

$8.15

$109.00

$35.63

$0.00

$46.97

$911.80

$1070.54

5/26

$589.03

$298.12

$65.50

$10.40

$92.46

$15.59

$0.00

$59.09

$644.11

$1714.65

6/01

$348.10

$174.30

$30.70

$6.15

$50.69

$24.89

$0.00

$23.74

$386.25

$2100.88

6/8

No auctions –
went fishing in Canada

6/15

$518.38

$57.34

$58.25

$10.25

$45.60

$27.83

$0.00

$36.87

$396.92

$2497.80

6/22

$215.92

$241.08

$21.25

$3.05

$56.44

$8.97

$0.00

$0.00

$367.29

$2865.09

6/29

$701.34

$139.91

$74.97

$12.35

$69.99

$25.42

$0.00

$49.49

$609.03

$3474.12

7/06

$935.78

$118.42

$41.75

$14.55

$78.21

$29.73

$0.00

$39.90

$850.06

$4324.18

7/13

$365.10

$125.98

$42.72

$5.35

$44.21

$16.12

$0.00

$21.71

$360.97

$4685.15

7/20

$366.07

$321.05

$89.50

$9.55

$86.45

$11.91

$0.00

$42.42

$447.59

$5132.44

7/27

$495.80

$469.26

$50.75

$11.35

$110.35

$22.73

$0.00

$52.02

$717.86

$5850.30

8/03

$278.74

$338.05

$45.00

$9.50

$81.83

$9.80

$0.00

$58.99

$411.67

$6261.97

8/10

$367.58

$210.45

$45.90

$11.15

$66.61

$19.32

$0.00

$38.38

$396.67

$6658.64

8/17

$542.88

$185.98

$52.10

$8.00

$69.00

$20.33

$0.00

$46.96

$532.47

$7191.11

8/24

$422.69

$492.56

$78.25

$23.85

$118.01

$17.30

$0.00

$54.04

$623.80

$7814.91

9.01

$914.03

$273.19

$108.00

$11.10

$104.60

$33.38

$0.00

$36.87

$893.27

$8708.18

9/07

$451.78

$55.46

$46.00

$5.40

$33.47

$21.81

$0.00

$24.75

$375.81

$9083.99

9/14

$319.86

$192.18

$52.00

$7.50

$54.72

$14.35

$0.00

$39.90

$343.57

$9427.56

9/21

$362.01

$117.18

$43.50

$12.65

$52.98

$18.03

$0.00

$31.82

$320.21

$9747.77

9/28

$581.03

$239.47

$124.85

$13.00

$76.54

$20.13

$0.00

$133.83

$452.15

$10,199.92

10/05

$527.48

$283.17

$36.25

$5.60

76.49

$7.41

$0.00

$36.87

$648.03

$10,847.95

With a net profit of $10,847.95 for the five months, I obviously fell well short of my goal of $15,000 net profit.

Even though my final figure is well short of my $15,000 goal, I hope that the last five months have demonstrated garage sales, thrift shops, and book sales be a source of inventory for someone wanting to sell on eBay.

I’d like to thank everyone who took part this year. I hope in one fashion or another, you were able to learn something that will make your endeavors on eBay more profitable in the future.

It appears that once again I’m playing catch-up, having to report the results from two weeks to be caught up with this years Challenge. This report will cover both week 20 and week 21.

The number of garage sales in Grand Forks the last few weeks has declined significantly resulting in a decreased number of listings. This smaller number of items found has also led to smaller dollar amounts in sales.

Because of this, last Saturday I chose to get up early and drive to Barnesville, Minnesota for their annual City Wide Garage Sale Extravaganza. It will likely turn out to be a good decision. I went to 54 garage sales in Barnesville. Those sales resulted in 40 new items that are currently listed on eBay.

If I had stayed in Grand Forks I would have gone to 14 fresh sales on Saturday. While it’s impossible to know what I might have bought, no regulars that I’ve talked to reported buying anything of any significance, so it’s unlikely I would have either.

All that said, here’s how things look at the end of week 20. You will notice that my mileage expense for last week was up significantly. That is due to the 220 mile round trip I made to Barnesville.

I am really behind in updating so I’m updating for 5 weeks this time. Our sales have all been on Amazon as we just haven’t been finding much to list on eBay. I do have some lots of books and some china to list this weekend; but outside of that, everything to the end of the Challenge will probably be Amazon sales.

Ended

eBay Sold

Amazon Sold

Cost

List Fees

FV Fees

PayPal Fees

Incid. Fees

Miles

Net Profit

Total

5/08

$0.00

$46.93

$5.50

$0.00

$9.74

$0.00

$0.00

$10.74

$20.95

$20.95

5/15

$0.00

$231.92

$24.75

$0.00

$51.17

$0.00

$0.00

$21.97

$134.03

$154.98

5/22

$61.97

$299.91

$72.50

$2.50

$68.29

$3.01

$0.00

$12.59

$202.99

$357.97

5/29

$77.06

$186.25

$41.25

$3.55

$42.95

$4.61

$0.00

$10.12

$160.83

$518.80

6/05

$0.00

$139.65

$6.00

$0.00

$15.25

$0.00

$0.00

$4.71

$113.69

$632.39

6/12

$0.00

$93.59

$8.75

$0.00

$20.80

$0.00

$0.00

$$6.59

$57.45

$689.94

6/19

$0.00

$98.29

$4.50

$0.00

$22.84

$0.00

$0.00

$4.94

$66.01

$755.95

6/26

$0.00

$114..30

$4.25

$0.00

$23.90

$0.00

$0.00

$6.48

$79.67

$835.62

7/3

$0.00

$100.95

$13.25

$0.00

$24.05

$0.00

$0.00

$6.49

$57.16

$892.78

7/10

$0.00

$61.25

$4.75

$0.00

$15.29

$0.00

$0.00

$3.52

$37.69

$930.47

7/17

$345.50

$35.25

$46.40

$8.41

$34.47

$17.12

$0.00

$19.58

$254.77

$1185.24

7/24

Vacation

$1185.24

7/31

Vacation

$1185.24

8/7

$56.96

$107.84

$11.55

$3.45

$28.71

$3.67

$0.00

$5.76

$111.66

$1296.90

8/14

$161.61

$78.20

$34.15

$8.10

$28.43

$10.62

$0.00

$10.70

$147.81

$1444.71

8/21

$0/00

$163.54

$11.00

$0.00

$34.23

$0.00

$0.00

$14.04

$104.27

$1548.98

8/28

$0.00

$122.94

$3.60

$0.00

$23.29

$0.00

$0.00

$4.85

$91.20

$1640.18

9/4

$0.00

$44.94

$1.50

$0.00

$10.25

$0.00

$0.00

$3.62

$29.57

$1669.75

9/11

$0.00

$43.93

$1.00

$0.00

$10.09

$0.00

$0.00

$2.91

$29.93

$1699.68

9/18

$0.00

$141.55

$2.25

$0.00

$25.53

$0.00

$0.00

$5.94

$107.83

$1807.51

We wish everyone the best as we wrap up the 2008 Garage Sale Challenge. Larry and Kathy

Due to my hospital stay I didn’t list anything until just recently. Although I did have a few sales from my ebay store, they were not challange related and don’t count. I will post new stats next week. The challange is almost over, but I hope Gary does this again next year. I didn’t do very well with this challange, but I have learned so much and would like the opportunity to try again. I will definately do somethings differently!

Once again a variety of things happened over the last two weeks and the results for week 18 of the 2008 Garage Sale Challenge never got posted. This leads to another catch-up post including both week 18 and week 19 which just ended.

The seventeenth week of the Challenge saw an upswing in the number of garage sales in Grand Forks (probably due to summer winding down) which resulted in a dramatic increase in purchases and the number of listings for week 18. I had 42 qualifying items listed and they resulted in sales of $914.03. In addition, Amazon also did quite well bringing in $273.19 in book sales.

There were very few garages sales during week 18 because of the long Labor Day weekend and people wanting to get out of town. I did have a fair amount of luck at the thrift stores however, and between the thrift stores and a few garage sales I picked up 20 qualifying items that ended Sunday evening. Seventeen of the twenty items sold bringing in $451.78. Amazon sales for the week were a dismal $55.46. This was a result of my having to be gone most of the week and having to put Amazon on vacation for the majority of the week.